Sophia, sorry to hear of your difficulties with Celtrek. At least you got one of the two phones you ordered and you can probably use it with a prepaid data capable sim from another provider. Looks like a nice phone! If PayPal decides the dispute in your favor, you should be able to recover what you paid for the second phone and associated prepaid airtime.
My experience with PayPal in disputes has been a good one: my money was refunded by PayPal when a Hong Kong dealer failed to send a phone I once ordered, and was subsequently delisted from ebay (although I should say that the vast majority of ebay deals I've done have been quite satisfactory and there are many fine reputable dealers based in Hong Kong).

NiamhMAXroam, I appreciate your offer to rectify the issues associated with my Maxroam card, but while you have offered exemplary customer service with prior Maxroam issues I've had, the Maxroam card regrettably does not fit my current prepaid sim card needs. It is not worth restoring what little remaining credit was still on my card.

Thanks for the kind words :) Yes, it is a lovely phone, very happy with it. My Dad lives in another country, so he is jealous as can be that I get to play and he doesn't :p
Anyway, if we have not heard from them by Tuesday (I sent MANY messages over the past few weeks, non got answered), we shall ask Paypal to proceed with getting the money back, and order it from International Orders instead. Shame!

If nothing heard by next Tuesday, it would be a good idea to file the PayPal dispute. You can use your unanswered messages as documentation that you tried to resolve the transaction in good faith with no results. This needs to be done within 45 days of the original transaction. Good luck!

Paypal terms of service might differ from country to country but from experience I can tell you they don't cover "prepaid credit", only physical goods. Now I don't know exactly how they handle these corner cases where a physical SIM is delivered with some attached prepaid value.
However you should be able to get the money for the phone which is what matters. I strongly recommend you escalate to a claim (or however is called the next step) now because at this point only an automated message will be sent to the shop and either they'll get a nudge and send your phone faster (if they can/want to do it) or you'll get your money back faster. It's win-win and you waited enough anyway.

Hi PrepaidGSM forum. This is James, VP Marketing at OneSimCard. I'm here to answer any questions that might come up about our service and to help compare with other options out there.

I also want to let everyone here know that just our offer for former United Mobile customers, now Celtrek / Global Roaming customers can mail us their SIM card and we will replace it for free including airtime

I look forward to fielding questions and providing support to our current customers through this forum.

Thanks, I have just done so. Now, they have 10 days to respond, if not, we shall get the money back. Thanks for the advice, and I shall keep everybody posted.

Come on give them another chance and send them a little money, the owner needs a little more free money for his trip to Vancouver.

Total shock ...
 

Can always count on the good people of this forum to inform us when another prepaid card has bitten the dust (allegedly).

Guess it would be asking too much for Florian or Aaron or Ryan or *someone* to make an appearance or send an email.

Well now, thinking about it, did any of the others? (no)

Let's dig through the old unused billfold of PP SIM card companies that have failed to deliver goods and services as advertised...

Swisscom
Hop
United Mobile/Riiing
09
Yackie
Globe Prepaid (Philippines)
Celtrek (allegedly)

All that leaves (as useful for me) is Mobal - and that's hardly a PP SIM - Isn't even a cost-effective SIM.

Well, today is Wednesday, and not a peep from our Paypal claim on Celtrek. I think it is safe to assume they have passed on... sad. Paypal said if we have not heard from them within 10 days, they will decide the claim in our favor and give back the money. What a relief!

Celtrek - NEVER AGAIN! Nor anybody else who have taken them over, I just noticed that in my previous reply (saying thanks, I have just done so), I actually replied to f300... it looks as if I am replying to this one post individual who says they have taken over Celtrek. Thanks, but no thanks, I'm done with you lot... I can live with the $10 loss on the simcard as at least my own Nexus One phone works perfectly.

As for my Dad, he will order from International Orders as soon as the money is refunded.

Dang; anyone having any luck with Global Roaming? They have the best rates for where I'm travelling to (Dominican Republic, US$0.10/min incoming, US$0.24/min outgoing to USA), and I wouldn't want to purchase their card and then have all this trouble. Is this an isolated incident or widespread?

Sophia, we did receive your registration to replace your unusable Celtrek / Global Roaming SIM card. As soon as we receive your SIM in the mail, we will ship you your free OneSimCard SIM with $10 balance.

Anyone else can do this as well by using the link posted above. FYI, we have nothing to do with Celtrek / Global Roaming; we're a private U.S. company based in Boston, MA.

James

Ok, won't hurt to try. Will be traveling to Holland in April and could sure use an international sim card by then.

I don't believe this firm have taken over Celtrek, or that there is any connection at all

It's just a parasitic hijack of this subject to post spam promoting an entirely different product.

Send your old SIM at your own risk, but it seems highly unlikely that any credit will be carried over.

Onesimcard, from now on kindly post in reply to queries only about your own product, not others

Andy, no intent to spam the forum, just trying to help people who have been left stranded by Celtrek. Obviously we will not be able to carry over any balances people had on their Celtrek accounts, but a free SIM with airtime should help. In any event, my apologies if I violated any forum rules by posting in this thread, however I thought it was relevant.

The tradition is that the forum is mainly for the interest of users but suppliers are allowed for mainly customer support type reasons and aren't meant to post material that is merely advertsing.

My comments about invading a thread about one product to post about another are my personal opinion; some people would view it as poor etiquette, some take no notice.

As you have no information whatsoever about Celtrek, and it is not yet known by other people what the position is, your opinion that your contribution is relevant might be viewed as somewhat tenuous

That's putting it mildly.

Back to the topic of Global Roaming, is this an isolated incident or are they really having issues everywhere (i.e. nobody can buy airtime, people can't use their cards, etc).

I am not sure if anyone knows for sure that they are gone for good. However, they have been down for at least 2 weeks. And, there has not been any communication to the customers. Also, you can't do much on their website. Somewhere in this thread a couple of folks reported they got an email from their CSR, however most of us have not heard anything.

Okay, thanks! :)

Guess I'll wait and see what happens. I'm not travelling for a bit and can hold off buying a sim card from anyone until then. They have the best rates for me, but if it doesn't work...that's the worst rate of all. LOL

Right now you can't order from them anyway, all their products say "out of stock".

Here a short update, more later. Celtrek responded to the claim by providing MY tracking number to Paypal, pretending it was sent and over with. Since they have flatly refused to communicate directly with either my Dad or myself, not responding to tickets, emails, and being offline on their live help chat, I must conclude they are a bunch of crooks.

It is easy enough to prove that I paid for MY phone and my Dad for his, only he never received his. We sent a detailed statement to Paypal explaining what was sent to who and when, and that the tracking number provided had nothing to do with my Dad's order. Heck, he doesn't even live in the same country as me.

Anyway, I will keep everybody posted, in the meantime, I URGE everybody NOT to do business with Celtrek... I do NOT have a good feeling about them at all. But, as I said, I will keep you posted. If Celtrek comes back with big apologies, I will amend my statements here.

Celtrek may lunch a new sim
 

It looks like they are not totally dead yet. They may be coming back down the road. At least they should have told their customers something. See the last posting on their twitter page - CelTrek (celtrek) on Twitter

Pfft. They are trying to con my Dad out of $650 without ever sending him the goods... now trying to con Paypal providing MY tracking number as "proof" of it being sent (which, as I said before, is ever so easy to prove WRONG)... not responding to ANY of our numerous tickets... would you do business with a company that shady? I wouldn't, even if they came back with the biggest bang on earth!

Here is the info we have gathered over the past few weeks:

Supposedly, their website and database was hacked by an outside party which is what brought all this on and they are working hard on getting everything back online. Why this takes over a month, I have no idea.....

The reason that no one answers the phones is because the owner has decided not to divulge any of the above info and has no ETA on getting back up & running. He may also not have any clue as to how to run a business, especially a SERVICE where the customer should ALWAYS be informed!

I also have reason to believe that the owner doesn’t really give a crap about his customers - since he seems to have plenty of time to give Twitter & Facebook updates daily but can't even find any time to keep customers abreast of the situation, apologize, etc.

We have spoken with the Federal authorities and criminal actions will be taken very soon due to the lack of communication from Global Roaming/Celtrek.

Stay Tuned!

I don't suppose you're related to those other two chancers obsessed with whining about Twitter and Facebook and equally irrelevant details, by any chance?

Come back when you can produce something with rather less obviously invented hearsay, or not at all

Only time will tell they probably will return as their twitter suggests & their voicemail has changed

My credit card gave me my last $20 refill from Celtrek back that I had not used.

I do hope they do make it back. There rates are much better than the other world sims cards.

The story posted above doesn't make a great deal of sense. If they were hacked, you easily move your accounts to a different computer and start profiling the accounts for evidence of fraudulent entries. Look for new deposits, high balances, high calling immediately after the hack. Compare your data with third party data looking for discrepencies.

If you need to temporarily block balances over $X in the interim, you'll have a hand full of angry customers. Right now, they've destroyed their base.

SIM Cards don't work for at least 4 Weeks
 

On Feb 3 I have received the following email from celltrek:

"We experienced an attacked on our database - which is causing the backend to be down for now.

Our technicians are working to resolve the matter shortly.


Apologies for any inconvenience,


Let us know how we can better serve you, as always we welcome your questions and feedback."

I have several SIM cards with them. All of them have stopped working since.

For someone to attack you backend/database and take you offline for this long indicates you did not know what you were doing in the first case. And your systems were very likely totally unsecure. Again, that's assuming that is what actually happened.

I'm not sure how much I trust them anymore I just want my money back and I'm sure again they will have the lowest rates so use with caution i guess who knows?

Bossman and Sedwards, far be it from me to put thoughts in your minds, but how can you ever trust a company that willfully tries to swindle a 74 year old out of $650? I say willfully, because they PROMISED to send him that Nexus One phone, they acknowledged there were two orders, received several tickets on the matter without one reply in return, and then were not too lazy to suddenly wake up to provide the wrong tracking number to Paypal as "proof" it was sent. Case closed and over with, right? Not so... they sent ONE and we paid for TWO.

My Dad has enough proof to provide to Paypal. He sent screenshots from both orders, both paypal payments, and the one shipment, as well as screenshots of the emails begging them to replay, and the automated ticket system message that my account was created. Since they refuse to let me log in, I cannot send further proof such as the actual tickets I sent, most of them with a "critical" status, and Celtrek playing dead throughout it all, but I'd say this is proof enough. Paypal is more than welcome to try and log in on our behalf, so they can see we spoke the truth there too.

Yesterday he got a message from Paypal that the matter is currently being investigated. If Celtrek had not provided a bogus tracking number, my Dad would have gotten his money back last Wednesday. Because they did try this swindle, it's still under investigation. Honest, huh? Real nice people.

However, I don't have a single doubt in my mind that the matter will be decided favorably in our case, since we have ample proof of the two orders, two payments, and single shipment of one phone.

Sophia,

I've only used PayPal casually so I don't know the answer to the question, but what happens if there isn't $650 in the account that is attached to their PayPal account?

Usually there is also a credit card associated with the paypal account. So, if there is not enough funds in the account, they will try to charge the rest to the credit card on file.

i understand sophia:( they shd refund us @ the minimum

I don't know :confused: and don't think we are not worried :down:

i think you are covered by paypal, its paypal's duty to verify sellers, i do know that if you wait for paypal to escalate it they wont and after 20 days or something if you haven't made alot of noise paypal is no longer liable to help you, i mean they know how to track down celtrek if they want to, my advice is keep badgering paypal

No life in their so-called support forum. However, it looks like a celtrek employee named Ryan gave some hint as to what the issue may be.

why isn't my account working?

Heh... good Celtrek is a big SCAM!

Edit: it got deleted. However, I will not rest until we DO GET OUR MONEY BACK, or until the phone is shipped to my Dad (whichever comes first).

Until then, Celtrek has STOLEN our money.

This is what it said:

---
Ryan
Removed this topic
Reason: We took the appropriate measures with Paypal and this case should be resolved shortly. No need for names or insults.
---

However I did not call names, nor put any insults there (apart from calling Celtrek a scam, which until proven otherwise, they are. They HAVE not given back my Dad his money, they took it for something that was never sent, no matter of deleting can change that FACT).

Ok, I am not trying to change this into a personal soap box, but I promised to keep everybody up-to-date. Today, for the FIRST TIME, Celtrek did respond in a personal email to me. Since I have been open and honest about this whole affair with all of you here, I will copy everything except my full name and numbers.

---

From Jack Mitchel @ Celtrek:

Dear Ms B...,

I'm following up on your Get Satisfaction post.
Can you briefly describe your problem so I can respond accordingly?

Thank you,

Jack | Customer Support | Global Roaming Inc.
20900 NE 30th Ave Suite 603, Miami, USA | T: +1 (305) 249-3121 | Toll Free: +1 (888) 5CELTREK

---

My response:

Yes Jack!

I will give you all the details, gladly.

On January 19th, I ordered a Nexus One phone from Celtrek, and paid $650 using Paypal (id s...m). Order number 102....
The next day, my Dad decided to order one for himself, and also paid that amount using Paypal as well (id j...m). Order number 102...., ordered January 20th.

We got confirmation for both orders, and I talked to Celtrek a few times on their live chat on which shipping of my phone was confirmed January 25th.
On 22nd of January I received a shipping confirmation that shipment 502.... for order 102.... was shipped to my address in Canada, and on the 5th of February I received this phone in perfect order.

After a few more chats inquiring about our OTHER order, my Dad's phone was confirmed to ship on Friday the 5th of February.
However, my Dad's phone was never shipped, and there is no tracking number of a shipment to the Netherlands.

Of course we did not consider my Dad's would not be shipped at all, but when time passed, we got concerned. We sent many, MANY emails, chats, tickets etc to ask when my Dad's phone would be shipped, and when we received NO information, we FINALLY filed a claim with paypal, or rather, my Dad did.

Lo and behold, Celtrek came back and gave MY shipment tracking number to Paypal, as if it was sent and over with. Needless to say that is hardly correct, since it was shipped to ME in Canada.

In short, we ordered two phones, paid for two, and received only one. Meaning between my Dad and myself, we are $650 out of pocket as of now.

Thank you for listening. We are getting desperate by now and don't know where to turn anymore. I shall add this email to the claim however, as yet another proof of our willingness to explain the situation.

Yours, Sophia B...

PS You can follow our horror story at http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/inte...eltrek-16.html

---

Is it me or is it time to start to see a glimmer of light... :surrender: